Which were the top 100 cell lines of 2020?

10

Min Read

In this blog:

  • A first look at our data on the top 100 cell lines from 2020
  • Which suppliers and products are leading in this market?
  • Freely download the top 100 for your own analysis

Today we are sharing the sixth in our Top 100 series of posts which examine our data for the previous year and provide insights into the products and companies leading in each reagent category. Over the past few weeks, we have covered the top 100 kits and assays, 100 lipids, 100 biochemicals, 100 antibodies and 100 proteins.

Experimental models are the newest reagent addition to our extensive search engine. Over the past year, we have curated an experimental models dataset encompassing 180,000 products which include cells, tissues, lysates and animals. In a CiteAb first, we will be exploring the cell line market from this dataset by taking a closer look at the top 100 cell lines of 2020.

Supplier share of the top 100 cell lines

We were interested to find that the top 100 cellular products were provided by just four suppliers: ATCC, Horizon Discovery, Lonza and Sciencell. ATCC currently dominates, holding a substantial 88% of the citations in the overall market. Drilling down, we found that the top ten products were entirely supplied by ATCC. The only four products in the top 100 from alternative suppliers were the Human HAP1 parental control cell line (Horizon discovery), Human Astrocytes (Sciencell), HUVEC and hMSC cells (Lonza). Compared to similar analysis of our other reagent types, this market features the fewest suppliers in the top 100 product list.

Our experimental models Product Manager Rhys commented on these findings: “Markets can change quickly, with companies both gaining and seeing less citations year on year. As this is the first time we have assessed the top 100 products for this market, we are excited to see how this list evolves in the future.”

Leading cellular products

In contrast to the low number of suppliers featured in this dataset, we observed a large variety of cellular products making our top 100 list. Products ranged from cell lines to primary cells, reporter cells and cells with genetic modifications (such as knockouts and overexpression). The top 100 cellular products were cited over 16,000 times in 2020.

The top ten cellular products held a 27.06% citation share, demonstrating their considerable popularity in research. The most cited cell line was 293T (CRL-3216) from American Tissue Culture Collection  (ATCC), claiming a 4.7% share of citations. 293T is derived from the HEK-293 cell line from human embryonic stem cells. This cell line is widely used in research due to the ease of transfection and culturing, enabling work on protein behaviour and recombinant protein production. Within the top ten, two further HEK-293 variants feature. We were not surprised to find cell lines such as HeLa, A-549, VERO and THP-1 also in the top ten given these products’ importance for research.

Suppliers who may break into the top 100

We noted that 293T (ACC 635) cells from DSMZ and Sf9 (11496015) cells from Thermo Fisher Scientific, featured just outside of the 2020 top 100 list. These are possible products to watch for entry into the top 100 in 2021. Given that all of our other reagent types have seen an increase in supplier diversity in the top 100 since they were last analysed, we may expect to see a similar pattern.

Today you can freely download the complete list of the top 100 cited cell lines of 2020 by signing up below. If you are interested in learning more about our full experimental model dataset, which contains citation data for thousands of cellular products, then please get in touch!

–        Skye and the CiteAb team

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